Free Republic

Mitch McConnell believes he has hit upon a solution for states that are upside-down on their pension obligations and other financial commitments: “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” he told Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday. “It’s saved some cities, and there’s no good reason for it not to be available.” There are a couple of good reasons for denying the states bankruptcy protection. One is the fact that there is no such thing as state-bankruptcy law in the United States. A second reason, related to the first, is the Constitution. In the United...

FRANKFORT - Kentucky's Democratic governor has vetoed abortion legislation pushed by Republican lawmakers. The bill would have given the state's Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron authority to regulate abortion clinics and the power to suspend abortions as an elective procedure during the coronavirus outbreak. Another part of the vetoed measure would have required doctors to provide life-sustaining care for an infant born alive after a failed abortion attempt. The measure cleared the legislature in the waning hours of this year’s legislative session. As a result, lawmakers won’t have an opportunity to override Governor Andy Beshear’s veto. In a statement on...

The University of Washington’s IHME COVID-19 model is the one most widely cited by policymakers and journalists. Superficially, that model has been relatively stable, with its total projected fatalities nationwide from the Wuhan virus declining from the mid-80,000 range to its current faux precise level of 67,641, which is probably a pretty good guess–one that you or I might have made–based on experience to date.But if we look at the IHME model’s projections for individual states, we see capricious changes that cast serious doubt on whether the model is based on any coherent scientific principles at all. I have...

The coronavirus patients began arriving the last week of March, transferred to the Gurwin Jewish Nursing and Rehabilitation Center under a New York State Mandate requiring nursing homes to accept those recovering from COVID-19, even if they might still be contagious. At the time, the Long Island nursing home had only one known resident who had contracted the virus, according to to the facility's president and CEO, Stuart Almer. A month later, Gurwin is battling an outbreak that's killed 24 residents — only three of whom were hospital transfers — and one staff member, who worked in housekeeping, Almer said....

Germany could be facing its second drought in just two years, a leading meteorologist has said, just as farmers struggle with strict measures imposed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. “The past two years were unusually dry. The ground now needs rain,” forecaster and oceanographer Mojib Latif told German regional newspaper Rhein Neckar Zeitung (RNZ) on Saturday. Latif said the country’s network of reservoirs is only partly full, adding that if there is no heavy rain in the next two to three weeks then a failed harvest could threaten the agriculture industry. […] Rain is forecast in the coming weeks, according...

Austin (KXAN) — As the coronavirus pandemic and response continues, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have continued to churn out papers and update models in an effort to give policymakers an informed look at the risk the virus poses. The latest projections for many places (including the state of Texas) based on current data suggest that there is a 64% probability Texas has already seen its peak in COVID-19 deaths and a 99% probability that the U.S. has already seen its peak in COVID-19 deaths. These numbers reflect significant changes from what these models have shown over...

YouTube took down a video Friday posted by the bio-tech firm Aytu BioSience explaining a new UV light treatment for coronavirus patients. Aytu BioScience announced Tuesday the firm is working with Cedars-Sinai and the FDA to determine the efficacy of the treatment. The video is now labeled, “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service”. Original video with now dead link: https://youtu.be/RZHQbKe9TtI Copy posted and live for now: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Aytu BioScience promoted the video on Twitter Friday morning, “Many are now talking about UV light being used as a treatment for COVID-19....

We're slowly approaching the night when Venus will be the brightest it's going to be in 2020. That moment arrives the night of April 27, right around 9pm EST. That evening, the planet hits its greatest illuminated extent, a fancy way of saying its really damn bright. This is the juncture when "the illuminated portion of Venus covers the greatest square area of the sky's dome," writes EarthSky. When it's at its brightest for the year, Venus is almost three times as bright as it is when it's at its dimmest.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - One of the first steps the state of Kentucky took when faced with the COVID-19 pandemic was canceling elective and non-emergency procedures at hospitals. The move was done to try to limit the use of personal protective equipment, and reduce potential exposure to the virus for health care workers. Since then, Kentucky’s health care system has been able to keep up with the number of COVID-19 cases, and starting next week some of those health care services will resume. Lexington ER doctor Ryan Stanton a lot of those elective procedures, can't be put off too long,...

Sweden's strategy to keep large parts of society open is widely backed by the public. It has been devised by scientists and backed by government, and yet not all the country's virologists are convinced. There is no lockdown here. Photos have been shared around the world of bars with crammed outdoor seating and long queues for waterfront ice cream kiosks, and yet it is a myth that life here goes on "as normal". On the face of it little has shut down. But data suggests the vast majority of the population have taken to voluntary social distancing, which is the...

A DW investigation has found that protest groups in various US states against recent coronavirus lockdown measures were set up by conservative gun lobbyists. The coordinated effort seems to be driven by the apparent long-term aim of building a larger base of support for gun law relaxation. This comes after thousands of people across the US organized online and started to demand an end to stay-at-home orders. Protest organizers claim on their Facebook pages that the lockdown restrictions are a result of “politicians on a power trip,” who they allege are “destroying our businesses, passing laws behind the cover of...

On March 7, Joshua Love became a part of Chicago’s other pandemic. The 21-year old was shot, the single bullet severing his spinal cord. Long before the word coronavirus became a part of our lives, another public health crisis played out in Chicago on an almost daily basis: people being shot. That crisis has not abated. Love is now a patient at Schwab Rehabilitation Center on Chicago’s West Side. “I can’t walk. I don’t know how long that’s going to last for,” he said during a video call after finishing his morning regimen. “He sustained a violently acquired spinal cord...

In the past fortnight, Mumbai's Dharavi area has emerged as a major hotspot of novel coronavirus cases. To prevent further spread of Covid-19 cases in one of the largest slums in the world, the state government has chalked out a three-fold strategy. Speaking on this at a special session at e-Agenda Aaj Tak on Saturday, Maharashtra Health Minister Tajesh tope said the biggest challenge for the state government is to implement the lockdown strictly and contain the spread of novel coronavirus in densely populated areas like Dharavi. Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the government has decided to administer hydroxychloroquine to...

Vlog report about Ivermectins effectiveness in treating the Wuhan Corona Virus.

As long as there are residents in the state of Michigan who need help and who need a voice, Democratic Congresswoman Karen Whitsett promised Saturday that she will not be silenced. In an interview on "Fox & Friends Weekend" with host Pete Hegseth, Whitsett explained that she would also continue to work with President Trump and any president who extended a hand her way to ensure what's done in her state needs to be done. On Saturday, a group called the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party Organization will consider censuring Whitsett for foregoing the status quo and meeting with President...

The first phase of reopening the state of Virginia “will be a two year affair,” State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver said on Friday. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) shared the “blueprint” to reopen Virginia on Friday, dubbed the “Forward Virginia Blueprint,” which outlines a phased approach to reopening the state — an approach embraced by a number of other states. “We cannot and will not lift restrictions the way you turn on a light switch,” Northam (D) said. “We will do it responsibly and deliberately, and it has to be grounded in data.” Phase One involves the reopening of certain businesses...

The novel coronavirus pandemic will define the modern era in the same way World War II shaped an earlier generation, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says in a 11-page memo outlining his ideas on how best to tackle the disease. “This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side,” he writes. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $250 million to the battle and Gates has been speaking up regularly to influence its direction — something that has sometimes placed him at odds with President Donald Trump and made him a target of...

Tianwen-1, meaning ‘questions to heaven’, is taken from the name of a long-form poem by Qu Yuan, a poet born in the fourth century B.C., according to CNSA chief engineer Ge Xiaochun. China is understood to be planning a Mars sample return mission, a Jupiter orbiter and considering possible missions to icy giants and interstellar space. A joint near-Earth asteroid sample return and comet rendezvous mission has also been proposed. Few details of the Tianwen-1 mission have been released so far. The Tianwen-1 spacecraft is expected to have a wet mass of around 5 metric tons. Launch on a Long...

State unemployment staffers are so busy, the Cuomo administration is asking City University of New York employees and civil servants from other agencies to help with the deluge of paperwork and callbacks. The beleaguered state Department of Labor needs additional staff to process some of the unemployment applications filed by tens of thousands of people suddenly out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic . . There are now 3,000 people working on the phones and processing applications seven days a week, he added. That’s up from the just 400 representatives in place before the health crisis. Penny Errico-Nagar, 62,...

Democratic Party leaders in Georgia and Michigan have targeted two state legislators for punishment. The “crime” of which both are accused is “breaking our party’s united front against the Trump menace,” said state Rep. James Beverly (D-Macon), chairman of the party’s House caucus. Georgia state representative Vernon Jones (D-DeKalb) made the “mistake” of praising the positive impacts on African Americans of Trump’s economic and prison-reform policies. Beverly pointed out that “it is our Party’s position that nothing Trump does is worthy of approval. Everything must be condemned if we hope to unseat him in the November election. There must be...